Older Americans are actually the ones who don't pay for music

There is a dominant narrative around music that has prevailed
since the Napster days: young people don't pay for music.

But research from Cowen's John Blackledge and Tim
Arcuri shows the actual picture is a bit more
complicated than that. The analysts found that 46% of US
respondents ages 18-24 had paid for music in the past month,
significantly higher than 45-54 (26%) and 65+ (12%). The data
shows that, at every stage of adult life, as people get older,
they are less likely to pay for music.

Here is the full chart:

Cowen

This makes intuitive sense given the nostalgia many have for the
music of their youth, which makes new purchases less likely as
time goes on. But it also brings up an important point about the
future of music.

The music industry seems to be in the midst of an unstoppable
move toward streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music,
and unlike digital downloads, this model is built on paying
for access instead of ownership. You pay a monthly fee and get to
listen to anything on Spotify.

This means that the age graph above could actually
change over time. When the 46% of 18 to 24-year-olds who have
paid for music in the last month push past 65, does that mean
they will cancel their Spotify accounts? Likely not, as this
would mean not only losing the ability to find new music, which
they might cease to care about, but also being able to listen,
on-demand, to those old songs that have been woven into their
emotional memory.